Why do we keep making bizarre decisions, like texting while driving? Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies this kind of irrational behavior and wrote two worldwide bestsellers about it. tendencies in your customers on your website.
Dan Ariely
Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at MIT and Duke University and the autho list to data of the bestsellers Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality.
His own experiences are the starting point for his research, Ariely told me. His interest in irrational behavior began in the hospital, where he spent three years with severe burns over 70% of his body.
The ordeal of pulling off bandages stuck to his burned skin made him think about human decisions. Nurses had decided that pulling on bandages quickly and hard was better, while he, as a patient, wondered why they didn’t pull more slowly. After his recovery, he did scientific research on the subject. It showed that it is indeed better for patients if bandages are pulled off slowly.
I recorded this video interview during Design for Conversion , an event about online persuasion and seduction (with thanks to Evert Stobbe for the camera work). A good opportunity to ask him how websites can use irrational behavior in their customers. But first I wanted to know something else: